Kolkata Book Fair 2018: New Stall To Guide The Bus Route

Kolkata: Bibliophiles of Kolkata, unite! Kolkata Book Fair 2018, or as us Bongs lovingly call it, Boi Mela is going on and we can’t keep calm! Avid readers of all ages eagerly wait for the Kolkata Book Fair 2018 all year long where they can shop till they drop and go home with bundles of books!

So, proper transport system is the biggest issue regarding this Book Fair. It is the world’s largest non-trade book fair with a total footfall of over 2 million people annually.Following this, a special stall for bus route will be functional from today. It will provide information on bus routes, fare details, routes, parking and more.

Security measures for the book fair have been beefed up this year. There are nine gates at the fair and they have been divided into four zones. Each zone has an anti molestation and anti snatching squad, ready to help if need be. Additionally there’ll be 8 watchtowers and 8 ‘May I Help You’ booths.

The focal theme of Kolkata International Book Fair 2018 is France. This year on the occasion of the 70th year of the Indo-France diplomatic relationship, the cultural wing of the French Embassy is organizing the Bonjour India Festival in selected cities of India.

The state Transport department has made an elaborate arrangement to ensure that common people easily reach the new venue of the Kolkata International Book Fair. This year it is going at Karunamoyee Central Park from January 31 to February 11.

It may be recalled that the state Transport department made elaborate arrangements and became immensely successful during earlier events including Fifa Under-17 Football World Cup. The state Transport department has decided to ply three types of buses up to the venue of the book fair.

There are shuttle buses, special buses and special sub-urban buses. The Transport department is operating 131 additional buses on weekdays and 177 buses on weekends for the book fair. The shuttle buses are mainly carry passengers up to a certain distance from where they can easily avail buses for their destinations.

On weekdays, 22 shuttle buses are plying while on Saturdays and Sundays, a total of 31 buses are operating from the book fair. The shuttle bus service are minimise the chance of traffic congestion near the venue.

There are 63 book fair special buses which will be operating from the locations including Howrah Station, Sealdah Station, Thakurpukur, Parnashree, Jadavpur and Dunlop. The number of the buses will be increased to 86 on weekends.

Arrangements have also been made to operate direct buses from sub-urban areas to the book fair. Such 46 buses are operating on weekdays and 60 on weekends and the places from where the buses are running include Barasat, Habra, Uttarpara, Bally Halt, Barrackpore, Joka and Santragachi.

It may be mentioned that it was on December 8 when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held a high level meeting at Nabanna to ensure proper arrangement for the book fair and also directed to take necessary measures as it is going to be held at a new venue this time.